Resources for "democracy assistance" have been shifted to the Middle East among other regions. To take just one example, Iran is now the top target of "democracy assistance," 22.66% of FY08 "Civil Society Funding" going to it: "Supporting Freedom's Advocates? An Analysis of the Bush Administration FY2008 Budget Request for Democracy and Human Rights," <http://www.freedomhouse.org/uploads/special_report/50.pdf>, p. 11. See, also, the table "Funding Levels by Region (in thousands)" -- it's clear that, overall, funding levels for "Europe and Eurasia," "East Asia and the Pacific," and "South and Central Asia" decreased and those for the "Near East," "Latin America and the Caribbean," and "Sub-Saharan Africa" increased.
BTW, even when "democracy assistance" fails to effect lasting regime change, as has been the case with Venezuela so far, economic costs for the targeted country can be steep.
Figure 2 shows Venezuela's real quarterly GDP
from 1998-2007 (first quarter)8. As can be seen
from the graph, the trajectory of the economy
appears to be very heavily influenced by external
shocks, especially political instability and strikes.
Chávez's first year (1999), which began with the
price of Venezuelan oil at its lowest point in 22 years,
was marked by negative growth. But the economy
began to grow in the first quarter of 2000 and
continued through the third quarter of 2001. The
next few months were a period of the most extreme
political instability: in December of 2001 the
Venezuelan Chamber of Commerce
(FEDECAMARAS) organized a general business
strike against the government. This political instability,
with much capital flight, continued through April 2002,
when the elected government was overthrown in a
military coup. The constitutional government was
restored within 48 hours, but stability did not return,
as the opposition continued to seek to topple the
government by extra-legal means. Growth remained
negative through the summer and fall of 2002, and
then the economy was hit with the opposition-led oil
strike of December 2002-February 2003. This plunged
the economy into a severe recession during which
Venezuela lost 24 percent of its GDP. (Mark Weisbrot
and Luis Sandoval, The Venezuelan Economy in the
Chávez Years, July 2007, <http://cepr.net/documents/publications/venezuela_2007_07.pdf>) -- Yoshie